Poetry with Prakriti is a two-week long festival of poetry held annually in Chennai to coincide with the famed Chennai music season. The festival brings together eminent and emerging poets, featuring readings to small, intimate audiences. These readings take place at several venues in the city, including colleges and cafeteria, IT parks and green public parks and spaces, and select shops and commercial establishments. The idea is to bring poetry closer to the public of Chennai. This year's festival is the third edition. As always, this year's festival too features an open competition.

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Aditi Machado's work has appeared or is forthcoming in a number of international and Indian journals. She is the non-fiction editor of Mimesis and in 2009, she won the TFA Award for Creative Writing and the Inaugural Srinivas Rayaprol Poetry Prize. She lives in Bangalore and blogs at Blotting paper.

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Dr Alka Pande is a consultat art advisor and curator of the Visual Arts Gallery at the India Habitat Center , New Delhi. In December 2006, She was awarded the chevalier dans I’Ordre des Art et des Lettres by the French Government.She also receiced the Charles Wallace Award for 1999-2000. In March 2009 She was honoured with te Australia-India Council Special Award. Dr Pande has completed her postdoctoral studies in critical art theory from Goldsmith College and has a range of books, academic paper and lectures on diverse aspects of the arts to her credit.

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Annie Zaidi's first collection of poems, Crush, was published in 2007 (Jaico, India). Her poetry has also appeared in First Proof: 2 (Penguin, India), Pratilipi and Indian Literature (Sahitya Akademi, India).  Her fiction has been anthologized in 21 Under 40, a collection of short stories (Zubaan, India), Verve and in a forthcoming edition of Atlas. An essay is included in India, a collection of contemporary Indian writing (ISBN, Italy). She also writes drama and was one among three shortlisted for the Hindu Playwright award, 2009. Over the last nine years, she has written for several newspapers and magazines including Frontline, Tehelka, Mid-day. She currently lives in Bombay."

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Anuradha Majumdar's books include Parallel Journeys (Magus) and Refugees from Paradise (Penguin India), both fiction. Presently working on her third book, Rousseau St. Her short stories have appeared in Nthposition, Verve and The Eye. Two collections of poetry include Mobile Hour, which was adapted for her choreographic work, 'Crossroads' and Light Matter, which was written for an art installation by Pierre Legrand. She also writes for adolescents: Island of Infinity (Puffin India). In 2007, participated in the Literature-Cinema conference at the Rome Film Festival’s Focus India event. Lives in Auroville

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Aruni Kashyap graduated from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi in 2007. He is the Assistant Editor of the academic research journal Yaatrā: the Journal of Assamese Literature and Culture. His poems have appeared in Indian Literature (Sahitya Akademi), Pratilipi, Postcolonial Text, The Daily Star (Bangladesh) and Muse India. His fiction and non-fiction has appeared in South Asian Review (University of Pittsburg, Johnstown), Tehelka, The Assam Tribune, Sadin, Satsori, Dainik Janasadharan, etc. He is awarded the Charles Wallace India Trust Scholarship for Creative Writing 2009 to the Scottish Universities’ International Summer School, University of Edinburgh.

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Deepika Arwind is 22 years old and lives in Bangalore. She is currently working as a reporter for The Hindu, Bangalore Bureau, after studying at the Asian College of Journalism in Chennai. She is interested in theatre and has acted in four plays. Other than theatre, she likes doodling, travelling, taking pictures and music. She recently received a special jury commendation at the Toto Funds the Arts Awards 2000, and is currently working on her manuscript (poetry) and is also writing a play.

Dominic Franks has stopped thinking of himself in terms of his name- or his profession. He likes his hair wind blown and his face weatherbeat. A doctor by trade, a reality television show and a love of sports saw him wind up as a television producer, after which he promptly became an advertising professional. Singularly affected by boredom, the current financial crisis stymied his efforts to earn his stripes as a sports journalist. He now alternates between stadia and graveyards searching for holy silences and wicked breezes. He also writes the occasional poem in between sidling down any street that promises a crazy conversation.

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E.V.Ramakrishnan is a bilingual writer who has published criticism, translations and poetry in both English and Malayalam, his mother tongue. Among his critical works are MAKING IT NEW:MODERNISM IN MALAYALAM, MARATHI AND HINDI POETRY(1995)  and AKSHARAVUM ADHUNIKATAYUM (1994),  a book of criticism in Malayalam which won Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award in 1995. He has published three books of poems in English: BEING ELSEWHERE IN MYSELF (1980), A PYTHON IN A SNAKE PARK(1994) TERMS OF SEEING: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS(2006). He has also published a volume of translations from Indian poetry titled TREE OF TONGUES: AN ANTHOLOGY OF MODERN INDIAN POETRY(1999). He lives in Surat where he is a Professor of English at South Gujarat University.

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Gopika Jadeja currently teaches as the same school she is alumna of. She has studied at St. Xavier’s College, Ahmedabad and SOAS, London. Gopika also publishes an independent journal called ‘Five Issues’. She has previously guest edited a journal and has written for newspapers.

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Mahua is a singer-songwriter, painter and film-maker and her poetry translates into all mediums. She works with English and Hindi.

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Mamang Dai is a journalist and author and her poems and short stories have been published in various journals and anthologies. Former President, Arunachal Pradesh Union of Working Journalists (APUWJ). Dai worked for the Sentinel newspaper, The Telegraph and The Hindustan Times. Currently she is a freelance journalist. She is the author of “Arunachal Pradesh- The Hidden Land.” 2003, which received the state’s first annual Verrier Elwin prize (in the field of publication and print media, 2003). Reprinted Penguin India 2009. ‘Mountain Harvest,’ a book on the Food of Arunachal Pradesh, and ‘The Legends of Pensam’ (Fiction- Penguin India) 2006. She also has a Poetry collection: “River Poems.” (2004), and The Sky Queen and Once upon a Moontime (KATHA) are among the first illustrated publications of the oral literature of the state for young readers. Dai is the first woman of the state to be selected to the IAS /IFS/ but left the service to pursue a career in journalism.

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Born in Baramullah, Kashmir, Manav Kaul started the theatre group ‘Aranya’ in 2004. His works include writing and directing plays‘Shakkar ke Paanch Daane’, ‘Peele Scooterwala Aadmi’, ‘Bali Aur Shambhu’, ‘Ilhaam’, ‘Aisa Kehte Hain’,’Shabd Sangeet’and ‘Park’. He also designed, adapted and directed “hakki haarutide nodidira”(a kanada play by Tandulkar), “Aantaheen” (Jean Paul Sartre), and "Park”(in English) . He has also worked as an actor with theatre directors like Satyadev Dubey, Sunil Shanbag and Alok Chatterjee.

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Nitoo Das teaches English at Indraprastha College for Women, University of Delhi. She was born in Guwahati, but came to Delhi in 1994 for her higher studies and decided to stay on and learn various survival skills in this ancient city. Her PhD dealt with constructions of the Assamese Identity under the British (1826-1920). Das runs a blog, which she began as an experiment almost four years ago while working on a research project (with Sarai, CSDS) on poetry as hypertext. Her interests include fractals, caricatures, comic books, horror films, and studies of online communities. Her poetry has been featured in online sites like Poetry International Web and Muse India and also in several anthologies. Das's poetry works with voice, soundscape and comic defamiliarisation. Her first collection, Boki, was published by Virtual Artists Collective, Chicago, in September 2008.

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Parnab Mukherjee is one of the leading alternative theatre directors of the country. An independent media analyst by profession, amongst his five published works there are two volumes of poetry-as-a-theatre performance namely Confessions of Ruttie Jinnah and other works and Uncommunist Manifesto and other Despatches(both published by Sampark) and These Trafficked texts (a long poetry-in-theatre performance on the issue of human trafficking as advocacy training material for workshops by Unifem and Unodc). Currently, a consultant with two publishing journals, he is an acclaimed expert on Badal Sircar's theatre and specialises in theatre-for-conflict-resolution .He is  the artistic director of Best of Kolkata Campus - a collective of campus theatre activists working on non-proscenium spaces since 1992.His current play About Caliban explores the poetic idiom of a number of Jaffna poets including some poetic lines of the brilliant playwright Shanmugalingam.

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Rati Saxena specialized in the study of the Vedas, especially Atharva Veda, and secured a Ph.D. Degree in Sanskrit from the University of Rajasthan, She has published Two collections in English, One in Malayalam,( translated ) four collections of her own poems in Hindi and a critical work in Hindi on the renowned Malayalam poet Balamani Amma Her poems have been translated in most of the non Indian languages also. one book of her poems is published in Italian language and one book in Uzbeck Language is under publication. Her recent work is research on Atharvaveda –“The seeds of mind” a fresh approach to study of Atharvaveda under the fellowship of Indira Gandhi National Center for Arts. She has translated about 12 Malayalam works, both prose and poetry, into Hindi and has participated in several national seminars and published articles in a number of journals. Se got Kendriya Sahitya Akedemy award for translation in year-2000 AD. She is Editor of a bilingual Web journal for poetry - www.kritya.in and managing trustee of a literary foundation called kritya,under which organized 4 poetry festivals (two international and two national). She has been invited for poetry reading in prestigious poetry festivals “PoesiaPresente” in Monza ( Italy), Mediterranea Festival ( Rome) and Iternational House of Stavanger (Norway) etc.

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SAMPURNA CHATTARJI is an award-winning poet, fiction-writer and translator. She is the author of several books for young people, including The Greatest Stories Ever Told (Penguin/Puffin, 2004), Mulla Nasruddin (Penguin/Puffin, 2008), Three Brothers and the Flower of Gold (Scholastic, 2008) and The Fried Frog and Other Funny Freaky Foodie Feisty Poems (Scholastic, 2009). Her translation of Sukumar Ray’s poetry and prose Abol Tabol: The Nonsense World of Sukumar Ray was first published in 2004 and reissued as a Puffin Classic in July 2008 under the title Wordygurdyboom!Sampurna’s poetry has featured on RTHK Radio 4 Hong Kong; in the international documentary Voices in Wartime directed by Seattle-based Rick King; and in Journals such as The Little Magazine, New Quest, Indian Literature (India); Carapace (South Africa); Stand Magazine, Wasafiri (UK); Drunken Boat, The Literary Review (US) and Wespennest (Germany). Her poetry has been anthologized in 60 Indian Poets (Penguin, India); Both Sides of The Sky (NBT, India); We Speak in Changing Languages (Sahitya Akademi, India); Imagining Ourselves: Global Voices from a New Generation of Women (International Museum of Women, San Francisco), Fulcrum: An Annual of Poetry and Aesthetics: Fifty-six Indian Poets 1951-2005 (Fulcrum Poetry Press, US), 100 Poets Against The War (Salt Publishing, UK) and The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets (Bloodaxe, UK). Her debut poetry collection, Sight May Strike You Blind, edited and with a foreword by Keki N. Daruwalla, was published by the Sahitya Akademi (India’s National Academy of Letters) in 2007, and reprinted in 2008. September 2009 saw the release of her first novel Rupture from HarperCollins.

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Born in 1947 to a Zoroastrian business-family in Bombay, India, Hoshang Merchant graduated second in his BA Class (1968) with a major in English and a minor in the culture of India. From his mother's family he descends from a line of preachers and teachers. He holds a Master's from Occidental College, Los Angeles. At Purdue University he specialized in the Renaissance and Modernism. Anais Nin and he corresponded for four years. His book on Nin, In-discretions, earned him a Ph.D. from Purdue in 1981 and is published by Writers Workshop which has also published eight books of his poetry since 1989. He helped establish Gay Liberation at Purdue. Since leaving Purdue in 1975, Merchant has attended the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Centre, Massachusetts and lived and taught in Heidelberg, Iran and Jerusalem where he was exposed to various radical student movements of the Left. He has studied Buddhism at the Tibetan Library at Dharamsala, north India, as well as Islam in Iran and Palestine. Rupa and Co. published his book of poems Flower to Flame in 1992 in the New Poetry in India series. Currently he teaches Poetry and Surrealism at Hyderabad University and is unmarried by choice.

Murali Sivaramakrishnan started writing at a very young age, drawing suitable inspiration from his ardent enthusiasm for natural history, especially ornithology, and his exceptional talent for sketching and painting. His early poems are replete with imagery of nature: animals and birds, mountains and forests, the sea and the sky, all find their place in his work alongside the human. He loves to travel and sketch people and places. His earliest significant poem – Night Heron--appeared in Chandrabhaga, and the poet Jayanta Mahapatra noted it mainly for its singular appeal and original voice. Another longer poem Ganga also found a place in Chandrabhaga in the early eighties. From then onwards Murali’s poems have appeared in many reputed journals and periodicals. Whatever his other preoccupations he has been writing poetry fairly regularly. Murali’s first volume of poems Night Heron: Poems and Sketches appeared in 1998. [Calcutta: The Writers Workshop, 1998] Conversations with Children (2005) and Earth Signs (2006) followed. Currently he is Professor and Head of the Department of English, Pondicherry   University, Pondicherry, India.

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Dr. Rizio Yohannan Raj is a bilingual writer who has published poetry, fiction, translations, criticism and children’s literature in English and Malayalam. Her debut novel in Malayalam, Avinashom (2000) was shortlisted for the DC Books Silver Jubilee Award and is presently being translated into English. Her second novel Yatrikom was published to critical acclaim in 2004. She was part of the revival of the Mumbai Poetry Circle while she lived in the city. Her poems in English have appeared in journals and anthologies in India and abroad. Her debut collection, Naked by the Sabarmati and Other Guna Poems is under publication at the Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi. It includes poems written through a decade of the poet’s finding homes in different parts of India. It reveals the ways in which she at once resists and adapts the boundaries of her multi-lingual, multi-cultural space in order to remain a writer. The poems find their political differences and connections in an organic text, which derives its aesthetics from an ancient philosophy of dualism.She lives between her home in Mumbai and Palakkad, Kerala, where she serves in the Department of English, Govt. Victoria College.

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Ruth Padel is a prize-winning British poet who also writes acclaimed non-fiction, Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Zoological Society of London, Bye-Fellow of Christ's College Cambridge. She has won the UK National Poetry Competition and individual poems from her seven collections have been widely anthologized, broadcasted, and shortlisted for all major British prizes.  
    

Her awards include First Prize in the National Poetry Competition, a Cholmeley Award from the Society of Authors, an Arts Council of England Writers' Award. Her more public work includes Chairmanship of the Poetry Society 2004-6, a Poetry Residency at the Promenade Concerts, a Writer's Residency at Somerset House in London, where she ran a much-acclaimed series of Writers’ Talks at the Courtauld Gallery.  

Her non-fiction includes two books on mind and madness in Greek tragedy, I'm A Man, a study of rock music, Greek myth and masculinity, and two books about reading contemporary poetry, 52 Ways of Looking at a Poem and The Poem and the Journey. These grew out of her popular "Sunday Poem" column which ran for three years in the Independent on Sunday. Her nature book, Tigers in Red Weather, about her quest through Asian jungles to find what is going on in tiger conservation, drew on her scientific background and Darwinian descent, and carried an appendix of poems related to her search.    

Darwin - A Life in Poems, a biography in lyric poems of her great-great-grandfather Charles Darwin, is shortlisted for The Costa Poetry Award. In 2010 she will publish three new books - her Bloodaxe Poetry lectures, Silent Letters of the Alphabet, a selection and Introduction to the poems of Walter Ralegh, and in February her first novel, Where the Serpent Lives.

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As a part of Poetry with Prakriti , we organized a poetry competition open to the public. Here are the contest winners.